From the Land of Hotter Water

   This week my lovely wife rejoined the fish watching team.  Depending on what you like, its a really good time to be a snorkeler in Kona.  The ocean water is really warm and it

Now that's what I call fine dining !

is so darn hot that when you are done with your swim, the cold shower feels simply mahvelous, dahling..  So good, in fact, that we are tempted to take a tray table to the beach and have dinner while enjoying a cold shower.  I believe Cosmo Kramer pioneered that idea and this summer in Hawaii, it seems like he was really on to something.

    The day of Sandra's return, we went for a swim on the Ironman side of the pier.  As we strolled down to Alii Drive, we were shocked to see a pod of dolphins swimming between the fourth swim buoy and pier; they were as close as I have ever seen them.   Of course, by the time we changed into our snorkel gear, the dolphins and their attendant school of paddle boarders were long gone.  A day late and a dolphin short once again. 

     Schmoopie and I had a really nice swim.  There was a whitemouth moray near the pier and  a couple of juvenile dascyllus to keep us interested.  On the way in,

Pebbled Butterfly  C. multicinctus  Kailua Kona 2015

I found a Blacktail Snapper chilling (as if that was possible this summer) under a coral head.  He hung around patiently while I snapped his picture.  This handsome fish is clearly becoming more common.


     As  I was photographing the second dascyllus, who was dodging about a cauliflower coral in the clear water by the pier, I managed to nab these nice pictures of a Pebbled Butterfly and a Freckle Faced Hawkfish.  Common fish, to be sure, but not so easy to get an excellent photograph.

    The following afternoon I went out with Bob Hillis out on the PAR.  Between colds and bad weather, I hadn't even seen Bob, much less went fish watching with him, since our return from Portland.  In 
the Inner Harbour, on the first look after putting on the old flippers, I saw a small gurnard.  Bob was happy, saying he had never seen one in there.  I, in turn

Mr Freckleface hard by the Kailua Pier.

recalled seeing one with Sandra a couple years earlier.  She attempted to warn the nearby bathers of the danger, which, as it turns out, is non-existent.   This is just as well because the tourists paid her no heed, the Philistines.

       Out on the PAR, there was a moderate amount of surge.  There were plenty of Whitespotted Surgeons and I took the picture you see here.  A lucky shot which combined a well illuminated subject caught in crisp focus by adept panning as he swam by.  Que suerte, no?

    Bob is prone to dive down and look into caves and under things like disenfranchised rudders.  On one such venture, he chased a pair of of reticulated butterfiles out from under a dismembered portion of a long forgotten cement pier.  By comparison, I'm happy

when I chase a gecko out from behind a picture hanging on my living room wall.  On another dive, he reported that there was a turtle harboring beneath a small lava outcropping about fifteen feet below the surging surface.  

    As you may recall, I don't have a lot of lost love for green sea turtles.  Like some small children with vindictive parents, the turtles have a propensity to get me in trouble.  My new best friends back in Camas, Wa., the Redoubtable Gail and Martin DeLuke, like turtles quite a bit.  I know this because Martin made a disc for us with pictures of all the good things they saw in their four weeks here in the land of mahalo.  As a solid third of Martin's pictures were of turtles in various stages of undress, I feel safe in saying that the DeLukes really like turtles.  It is of some related interest that Gail teaches school and thus is the one to decide who gets in trouble.  I hear through the  Washougal  underground that she wields a wicked ruler.  Even as I write these words, I can feel the back of my hand throbbing in pain.  I won't do it again,

Bob Hillis, "I tot I saw a Puddy Tat"  Or was it a turtle?

Mrs. DeLuke.  I promise.

   There was no way  I was going to dive fifteen feet to see a damn turtle, so we moved on to other flotsam, jetsom, caves and wreckage. Not to mention the occasional fish.  Maybe if Martin had been there, he would have dove down to see the benighted turtle in his cavern.  There is little doubt that he is a better man than I, held in especially high esteem by the Sandwich Island Society of Sea Turtles.   He's got the pictures to prove it!

   But I digress. 

     We swam out about twenty yards further than I had gone previously, crossing a lava reef outside the little lighthouse.  As I turned to go back, I discovered that I was in a significant current.  I tucked the Olympus in my pocket and swam like hell for about a minute, finally achieving a patch of slower moving water.

Forster's Hawkfish,  P.forsteri  Kahalu'u Sept 2015

    A bit later I appraised my swim buddy of this experience and he replied that he suspected that there might be a strong current going around the point, so he swam further out and around.   Hmmm.  Sort of makes you wonder when he was going to tell me.  About the time I reached Maui?

    Yesterday afternoon,  Sandra and I made it to Kahalu'u.  By 2 PM many of the people from the cruise ship (I am no longer permitted to call the Rubber-nosed Geeks or Sea Going Rats) had headed back for the afternoon buffet.   Out near Surfer's Rock we saw one of  our favorite immatures.  I call it Forster's Hawkfish, it being the child of Mr. and Mrs. Freckeface, aka P. forsteri.  Young master Forster is a handsome lad with a jaunty chartreuse cap.

    A bit further on we saw a busy bluestripe cleaner wrasse plying his trade on a black durgon.  Would have made a great picture, but I wasn't fast enough.

  As we headed in for a landing, I was struck by how warm the water was near shore.  On this afternoon I believe it topped 90 degrees at the sand channel entry.   The cool shower that followed felt especially good.  I kept looking around for Kramer bringing a tray table and a cool green salad.


jeff